Growing Pains

At eleven, I led my new pony, Molly
away from Camp Winnecunnet Petting Zoo,
where she was fed chicken feed and kept
in a wire-framed stall so narrow
she had to walk backwards to go out.
Camp boys used her as target practice
and the western saddle she wore for pony rides
covered her scabbed, scarred back.
I visited her on my weekly paper route,
and convinced the camp director
 to let me take her home over the winter months.
He agreed, and she never returned.

We made a stall for her in our old barn,
my brothers had to move their car parts,
share the space beneath the basketball hoop.
Well-fed, her winter coat grew like a bear's,
her eyes softened, her nicker became familiar.
She taught me to trot without stirrups,
to canter across fields, my hands grabbing
her mane for balance.  I learned to trust her body
more than my own.

I tried to stop growing.  Even with my prayers
by the next winter my legs hung far below
Molly's round belly.  Already the tallest girl
in Sister Adrienne's 7th grade class, the boys
didn’t even reach the top button of my hand-me-
down blouses. But Molly didn’t grow.

At thirteen, when my toes almost reached her knees, I agreed
to find her a new home. And on the day the trailer came
to take her away, I bent down, wrapped my arms around her neck.
Her soft eyes were teary too, or so I thought.
It was my first experience with loss.
Little did I know, it would not
be my last,
or that
I would carry that loss
so far, so long.